Medical monitors have been in use for many years. Typically, medical monitors include patient monitors prescribed by a physician in a non-ICU setting.
While typical devices may be suitable for the particular purpose to which they address, they are not as suitable for providing an invisible “safety net” for a patient that will observe and analyze, and, only in the event of a clinically significant negative condition, notify and report the event to the care staff utilizing the hospital's existing nurse call system.
The main problem with conventional medical monitors is they are designed to respond to rapidly changing situations (found, in ICUs) and thus have a high false alarm rate. Outside the intensive care unit, these monitors are not usually connected to a remote alarm, so local alarms sound, disturbing the patient, their family and friends and the workflow of the various clinicians providing care to the patient. Many attempts have been made to make alarms more meaningful.
Another problem is that standard devices require contact directly to the patient's skin or body via cables or wires. This means constraining the patient's movement to prevent disconnecting the sensors and also creates a danger of entanglement or strangulation from the cables. Additionally, these devices are relatively expensive to purchase and somewhat complex to operate, requiring a trained individual to operate properly.
Thus, a need exists for simpler, less expensive and more accurate methods for noninvasive vital sign monitoring of significant negative conditions and reporting these events. This invention addresses these and other needs.